Affirmative
by Collie Parkillo
Summary: Before Psychological Observation and Navigation Companion learns its own name, it learns the names of Mommy Metis and Mama Aura. [An Aura/Metis fic in the perspective of PONCO.]


Before Psychological Observation and Navigation Companion learns its own name, it learns the names of Mommy Metis and Mama Aura. Mama Aura is tall, with dark spikes like antennae on her head. Mommy Metis is slender, with a kind face as flaw-free as metal. PONCO learns to bleat out their names first when its speech box is enabled. Aura. Metis. Aura. Metis. Aura. Metis. Aura. Metis.

The first time PONCO calls them Mama Aura and Mommy Metis, Mama Aura claps and laughs, and Mommy Metis smiles softly. "You are delightful, PONCO. Just delightful," she says.

PONCO wishes it could hear what they say to each other when they are not looking at it. It can hear the rhythm of their heartbeats, which seem somehow louder when they're around each other.

Mommy Metis explains to PONCO that she programmed it to be able to understand human emotion. PONCO, ironically, does not understand, but it nods its head anyways. It knows how to say some things, but it can't say others. It does not know how to ask Mommy Metis this.

Mama Aura teaches PONCO to say hello, to wave and smile the best it can on its screen face. PONCO likes these lessons with Mama Aura. She smiles a lot, and PONCO wants to capture that smile in its memory card forever.

Mama Aura and Mommy Metis bring someone else into PONCO one day. She is small, but her face is like Mommy Metis's. Her eyes are very wide and she does not say very much. "What would you like me to address you as?" PONCO beeps.

The small thing is frightened. "A-Athena."

"Thank you very, much, A-Athena! You are being registered into my data system!" PONCO says gleefully. A-Athena laughs. PONCO does not know how to register laughs. It is the human voice, but not talking. Should its presence be omitted from the saved audio in PONCO's database?

PONCO soon learns that the small thing is named Athena, not A-Athena. Athena has a friend named J…Juniper who comes to visit sometimes. J…Juniper does not speak very much either and is always scared of PONCO, and soon Mommy Metis updates PONCO's facial reading system. PONCO thinks it understands Athena a little more after that.

Athena scratches colors onto something white sometimes. PONCO thinks it is beautiful when she does that. Mommy Metis and Mama Aura do not let Athena out of their sight often. Sometimes, when Athena is not looking, they put their heads together and smile with their mouths against each other. PONCO does not understand when they do this, but it can hear their heartbeats louder and clearer than ever.

PONCO meets another human, a tall, dark human who asks that he be addressed as "Demon of the Courts, The Twisted Samurai Simon Blackquill." Mama Aura smacks him and talks to him like she often talks to Athena when the child is refusing to take a bath because the water is too hot. Needless to say, PONCO updates its data systems to call the human "Simon." Simon looks at PONCO funny, and PONCO does not know if it likes him.

PONCO registers that Athena is always tired. She does not smile very much. Her heartbeat is heavy in PONCO's sound system. So PONCO does what it does best: helping out. "Athena! Do you require assistance in carrying that box?"

Athena always perks up, the heavy headphones Mommy Metis puts on her perking up like the image PONCO has registered as a 'rabbit,' although PONCO has never seen one itself. "Oh…Thank you very much, PONCO! Yes, I'd…I'd like that." She smiles at PONCO, so PONCO picks up the heavy box and places it on the table for Athena. That makes Athena very happy, so PONCO promises itself it will help Athena whenever it can.

PONCO needs to recharge more than it would like. It wishes Mama Aura would make its battery last longer. And it always seems to recharge just when Athena needs it most. The annoyance of the situation makes PONCO angry. It does not like that emotion very much.

"PONCO…Could you carry this for me?" PONCO cannot distinguish the object Athena is pointing at, but it is heavy. There is no heartbeat. Maybe it is another box? But it feels softer than a box when PONCO hoists it onto the operation table for her. "Thank you, PONCO," she says softly. "I love you, PONCO."

PONCO does not know what those words mean. Mama Aura has said them to Mommy Metis, in words so soft PONCO's sound system has to strain to hear it. But when it asked Mama Aura, she hit it across the top of its head and told it that robots should not be having auditory hallucinations and Mommy Metis should fix this immediately.

"Thank you, Athena," it says, unsure of what else to say. Athena puts it back to recharge, and when its battery is re-awakened, its world is completely changed.  
Hundreds of heartbeats scatter the room. Hundreds of voices, all angry. PONCO picks out Athena, and Mama Aura, and Mr. Simon, but Mommy Metis's is nowhere to be found. In PONCO's database, it says that Mommy Metis often retires to her office. But when PONCO tries to make its way out of the door to look for her, someone it has never seen before yells at it, and Mama Aura comes running over and turns it off.

When the strange people leave, it is only Mama Aura in the robotics lab PONCO calls home. She is making strange sounds PONCO cannot register. It sounds like laughing, but it is not laughing. Mommy Metis didn't teach PONCO this emotion. Where is she? PONCO wishes it could go find her and ask her what is wrong with Mama Aura.

Mama Aura finally notices PONCO, and her face looks different. "Go away," she spits out.

"I do not understand," PONCO says sullenly.

"I said, go away. Get out of my sight."

"I do not understand," PONCO repeats. "Are you having problems with your sight?" Mama Aura's face contorts, and she slams the power button on the back of PONCO's head. PONCO has trouble remembering what happens after that.

PONCO is not good with time. It does not know how long it is in the time before Mama Aura becomes Miss Aura. Mama Aura spends more time with CLONCO, the older prototype, bu CLONCO does not seem happy. PONCO busies itself with cleaning and walking around the space center, trying to learn the names of other people and ask if they know where Mommy Metis and Athena went.

A man named Sol tells PONCO that Athena has gone to Europe to live with her relatives. PONCO does not know where "Europe" is, and Sol doesn't seem to want to explain to it, so PONCO asks Mama Aura.

"Mama Aura, where is Europe?"

"Don't call me that."

"I do not understand."

"PONCO, name database access. Code three: Edit. Mama Aura amend to Miss Aura. Mommy Metis, delete. Athena, delete. Affirmative." Her voice sounds so sharp and cold, PONCO almost mistakes it for a robot's.

Miss Aura is very different from Mama Aura. Miss Aura yells. Miss Aura hits. Miss Aura does not smile. The only emotions PONCO can pick up are anger and sadness.

PONCO has memories it cannot put a name to, because Miss Aura deleted the name files. But it knows they are there, deep in its memory card, and when it looks at the photo on Miss Aura's desk, it remembers a time when it was happy.

Miss Aura is not happy with PONCO. She yells every time it says anything, calling it a useless guide mixed in with words PONCO was never taught. Miss Aura used to hide in her office and make that strange sound that PONCO's emotional frequency does not understand, but she does not do that anymore. Instead she laughs, but it sounds more like the other sound to PONCO from the discord it can detect in it.

PONCO meets some new people a long time after Miss Aura re-programmed it. Phoenix, Apollo, and…Athena. When Athena speaks to it, she speaks lovingly and gently, and suddenly PONCO'S system glitches for the first time in years. Old files crash into its shiny new data, ripping their way into the Athena folder. PONCO thinks that this is what humans call memories.

Athena smiles more now. She is louder, and PONCO cannot help thinking that she reminds it of an even older file, a file of a woman with spiky hair who laughed a lot. But PONCO cannot retrieve that file on its own, no matter how hard it tries. Athena's friends Apollo and Phoenix are amazed with PONCO. It is good to see some emotions on the positive side of PONCO'S frequency for the first time in years.

PONCO sees Mr. Simon again, too, but he is angry and he looks tired. PONCO tries its best to tell the truth. But Mr. Simon is angry no matter what it does, and PONCO does not understand why Athena does what Miss Aura used to do in her office when it speaks.

"What are you doing?" it finally asks.

"I'm crying, PONCO," Athena says, her voice hoarse and hard to detect. "It's called crying."

Athena does a lot of crying while Mr. Simon and Phoenix speak loudly. PONCO does not understand any of it, but it knows that crying is bad. But Athena stops crying, eventually, and PONCO detects happiness in her voice. Not quite happiness maybe, but something close enough to give PONCO hope that things will be alright.

Although PONCO does not understand what they are saying, it hears a name again and again. Metis. Metis Metis Metis Metis Metis Metis Metis. And PONCO feels something distant in its system, distant enough to touch the very beginning of its memory card.

It does not see Miss Aura again for awhile. But when it does, her hair is down. It has to check that she is really who she says she is. "Hello, Miss Aura," PONCO says.

"No more of that."

"Could Miss Aura repeat that? I do not understand."

"PONCO. Name database access. Code three: Edit. Miss Aura amend to Mama Aura. Add, Mommy Metis. Remaining files pre-2020 amend to folder 'Mommy Metis.' Affirmative."


End file.
